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<h1><a name="SECTION0016700000000000000000">
14.7 <tt class="module">curses</tt> --
         Terminal handling for character-cell displays</a>
</h1>

<p>
<a name="module-curses"></a>

<p>

<span class="versionnote">Changed in version 1.6:
Added support for the <code>ncurses</code> library and
                converted to a package.</span>

<p>
The <tt class="module">curses</tt> module provides an interface to the curses
library, the de-facto standard for portable advanced terminal
handling.

<p>
While curses is most widely used in the <span class="Unix">Unix</span> environment, versions
are available for DOS, OS/2, and possibly other systems as well.  This
extension module is designed to match the API of ncurses, an
open-source curses library hosted on Linux and the BSD variants of
<span class="Unix">Unix</span>.

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<div class="seealso">
  <p class="heading">See Also:</p>

  <dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
    <dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-curses.ascii.html">curses.ascii</a></tt>:</b>
    <dd>Utilities for working with ASCII
                           characters, regardless of your locale
                           settings.
  </dl>
  <dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
    <dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-curses.panel.html">curses.panel</a></tt>:</b>
    <dd>A panel stack extension that adds depth to 
                           curses windows.
  </dl>
  <dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
    <dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-curses.textpad.html">curses.textpad</a></tt>:</b>
    <dd>Editable text widget for curses supporting 
                             <b class="program">Emacs</b>-like bindings.
  </dl>
  <dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
    <dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-curses.wrapper.html">curses.wrapper</a></tt>:</b>
    <dd>Convenience function to ensure proper
                             terminal setup and resetting on
                             application entry and exit.
  </dl>
  <dl compact="compact" class="seetitle">
    <dt><em class="citetitle"><a href="http://www.python.org/doc/howto/curses/curses.html"
        >Curses
            Programming with Python</a></em></dt>
    <dd>Tutorial material on using curses
            with Python, by Andrew Kuchling and Eric Raymond, is
            available on the Python Web site.</dd>
  </dl>
  <div class="seetext"><p>The <span class="file">Demo/curses/</span> directory in the Python source
           distribution contains some example programs using the
           curses bindings provided by this module.</p></div>
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